turn to fustian cutting, and force down wages by their
competition; the manufacturers discovered that they
could employ women and children, and the wages sank
to the rate paid them, while hundreds of men were
thrown out of employment. The manufacturers found
that they could get the work done in the factory itself
more cheaply than in the cutters’ workroom,
for which they indirectly paid the rent. Since
this discovery, the low upper-storey cutters’
rooms stand empty in many a cottage, or are let for
dwellings, while the cutter has lost his freedom of
choice of his working-hours, and is brought under the
dominion of the factory bell. A cutter of perhaps
forty-five years of age told me that he could remember
a time when he had received 8d. a yard for work, for
which he now received 1d.; true, he can cut the more
regular texture more quickly than the old, but he
can by no means do twice as much in an hour as formerly,
so that his wages have sunk to less than a quarter
of what they were. Leach {196} gives a list
of wages paid in 1827 and in 1843 for various goods,
from which it appears that articles paid in 1827 at
the rates of 4d., 2.25d., 2.75d., and 1d. per yard,
were paid in 1843 at the rate of 1.5d., 1d., .75d.,
and 0.375d. per yard, cutters’ wages. The
average weekly wage, according to Leach, was as follows:
1827, 1 pounds 6s. 6d.; 1 pounds 2s. 6d.; 1 pounds;
1 pounds 6s. 6d.; and for the same goods in 1843,
10s. 6d.; 7s. 6d.; 6s. 8d.; 10s.; while there are hundreds
of workers who cannot find employment even at these
last named rates. Of the hand-weavers of the
cotton industry we have already spoken; the other
woven fabrics are almost exclusively produced on hand-looms.
Here most of the workers have suffered as the weavers
have done from the crowding in of competitors displaced
by machinery, and are, moreover, subject like the
factory operatives to a severe fine system for bad
work. Take, for instance, the silk weavers.
Mr. Brocklehurst, one of the largest silk manufacturers
in all England, laid before a committee of members
of Parliament lists taken from his books, from which
it appears that for goods for which he paid wages
in 1821 at the rate of 30s., 14s., 3.5s., .75s., 1.5s.,
10s., he paid in 1839 but 9s., 7.25s., 2.25s., 0.333s.,
0.5s., 6.25s., while in this case no improvement in
the machinery has taken place. But what Mr.
Brocklehurst does may very well be taken as a standard
for all. From the same lists it appears that
the average weekly wage of his weavers, after all
deductions, was, in 1821, 16.5s., and, in 1831, but
6s. Since that time wages have fallen still further.
Goods which brought in 4d. weavers’ wages in
1831, bring in but 2.5d. in 1843 (single sarsnets),
and a great number of weavers in the country can get
work only when they undertake these goods at 1.5d.-2d.
Moreover, they are subject to arbitrary deductions
from their wages. Every weaver who receives
materials is given a card, on which is usually to be